Under Two Flags eBook

He had seen from the first, capabilities that might
be turned to endless uses; in the conscript drawn
from the populace of the provinces there was almost
always a knowledge of self-help, and often of some
trade, coupled with habits of diligence; in the soldier
made from the street Arab of Paris there were always
inconceivable intelligence, rapidity of wit, and plastic
vivacity; in the adventurers come, like himself, from
higher grades of society, and burying a broken career
under the shelter of the tricolor, there were continually
gifts and acquirements, and even genius, that had
run to seed and brought forth no fruit. Of all
these France always avails herself in a great degree;
but, as far as Cecil’s influence extended, they
were developed much more than usual. As his own
character gradually changed under the force of fate,
the desire for some interest in life grew on him (every
man, save one absolutely brainless and self-engrossed,
feels this sooner or late); and that interest he found,
or rather created, in his regiment. All that he
could do to contribute to its efficiency in the field
he did; all that he could do to further its internal
excellence he did likewise.

Coarseness perceptibly abated, and violence became
much rarer in that portion of his corps with which
he had immediately to do; the men gradually acquired
from him a better, a higher tone; they learned to do
duties inglorious and distasteful as well as they did
those which led them to the danger and the excitation
that they loved; and, having their good faith and
sympathy, heart and soul, with him, he met, in these
lawless leopards of African France, with loyalty, courage,
generosity, and self-abnegation far surpassing those
which he had ever met with in the polished civilization
of his early experience.

For their sakes, he spent many of his free hours in
the Chambree. Many a man, seeing him there, came
and worked at some ingenious design, instead of going
off to burn his brains out with brandy, if he had sous
enough to buy any, or to do some dexterous bit of
thieving on a native, if he had not. Many a time
knowing him to be there sufficed to restrain the talk
around from lewdness and from ribaldry, and turn it
into channels at once less loathsome and more mirthful,
because they felt that obscenity and vulgarity were
alike jarring on his ear, although he had never more
than tacitly shown that they were so. A precisian
would have been covered with their contumely and ridicule;
a saint would have been driven out from their midst
with every missile merciless tongues and merciless
hands could pelt with; a martinet would have been cursed
aloud, and cheated, flouted, rebelled against, on every
possible occasion. But the man who was “one
of them” entirely, while yet simply and thoroughly
a gentleman, had great influence—­an influence
exclusively for good.

The Chambree was empty when he returned; the men were
scattered over the town in one of their scant pauses
of liberty; there was only the dog of the regiment,
Flick-Flack, a snow-white poodle, asleep in the heat,
on a sack, who, without waking, moved his tail in
a sign of gratification as Cecil stroked him and sat
down near; betaking himself to the work he had in
hand.